


Time, Space and Air

by Trees_Frogs_andPotentially_Treefrogs



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, I don't know how to tag this..., Number Five | The Boy-centric, Unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26218447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trees_Frogs_andPotentially_Treefrogs/pseuds/Trees_Frogs_andPotentially_Treefrogs
Summary: Five, with the help of Mother, tries a spacial jump for the first time.ORFive finally gives into the pull, and learns to live within a tenth of a second.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Grace Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 22
Kudos: 93





	Time, Space and Air

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my fellow frogs!
> 
> I love this show SO much and I have so much stuff I want to write, so here's some of it! I've thought a lot about what the first time the kids use their powers would look like, and I'm never going to turn down the opportunity to put Grace in one of my stories! I hope you guys like this, and I always appreciate your comments and kudos. Happy reading!

Theoretically, this should have been easy; Five knew that Luther was stronger than his tiny six-year-old body should have allowed, and that Allison could manipulate people’s actions with just her words. He knew that Diego could curve objects in movement, and Klaus saw people who weren’t really there. Ben hid something inside of himself, but he had a hard time letting it out, and Vanya was convinced that she was rather normal. So, it should have been easy to discover his abilities, but the more he tried, the more discouraged he became. Five thought he may be normal, too, but Father insisted that there  _ was _ something extraordinary about him. Five didn’t really know what to believe, and how should he? It’s not every day that a six year old child is expected to know their super powers. He knows his siblings are special, has seen the way their abilities impress Father every day, and he has seen Father look at him the same way he stares at a particularly fascinating tree branch out the window. Five doesn’t like to be compared to tree branches, not when he  _ knows _ that he should be just as good as his siblings. 

Five speaks to Mother one evening, his windows open in the bedroom as he curls up next to her on his bed, leaning easily into her side as her warm hand rests on his nape. He asks about his brothers and sisters, how their training is going, what they’re learning. His mother is very smart, and easily picks up on his tone. She assures him that his powers will make themselves known soon. Five grabs her hand and traces the edges of her manicured nails with the pads of his own fingers before looking her firmly in the eye.

“Mother,” he says, his small voice surprisingly firm, “sometimes, I think my abilities  _ are _ there, I just don’t know what to do with them.” Grace lets her hand twine with his.

“Have you told your father yet?” Five shakes his head rapidly.

“No, Mother. I don’t know what he will say if he sees that I can  _ feel _ something, but I just can’t  _ do _ it.” Grace would have liked very much to comfort her boy, to give him confidence as he learns of his great potential, but she also knows that telling him that Mr.Hargreeves will be patient and benevolent as he learns is a lie. Grace has sat and held all of her children as they hide from their training, fearful of the punishment that follows any lack of success. So, Grace just holds his hand tighter.

“That’s okay, sweetheart. I know you’ll figure it out soon, you just let me know if you ever want any help.” Five squeezed her hand back, and leaned his head on her shoulder.

“I will, thanks, Mother.”

…

Five is out in the courtyard two days later, and the sun still has yet to come up. The sky is milky dove colored, salmon highlights lining the clouds. He’s up and dressed and ready, but even with his blazer on, the early May air nips at his skin, his cheeks flushed in the chill. He’s facing the East, watching as the sky begins to glow and desperately trying to sooth the tremor deep in his gut. His mother stands six or seven feet away, red lips curled in a pleasant smile. He focuses on the pronounced feeling of a pull from deep within himself, his breath easy as his eyes slip closed. He’d told Mother about this feeling the other evening, the feeling of string wrapped around his ribs and spine, a soft, bouncing tug that urges his bones forward faster than any human should be able to go. The air in his lungs grows heavy, his shoulders weighed down by the light that climbs over the edge of the roof. There’s fire on his skin and ice urged from his gut, some sort of stopper pulled loose as his blood is let loose into the world around him. He knows that his body is whole, but his mind tells him that half of it is already five feet in front of him, standing in his mother’s arms. He hears her somewhere in front and behind him, her assurance that giving in will only bring him farther. Distantly, he feels his hands clutch the string at the base of his ribs, his palms trembling as he is filled with something like energy. There’s movement that starts internally, some sort of yank on his stomach and heart, only his fingertips preceding him, and Five manages to pry his eyes open. 

The world has slowed, and the soft sound of the doves cooing and the rustle of leaves on the branches and the hush of slow wind grew impossibly slower, the deep timber taken on by everything resonating deeply within the boy. He saw light, brilliant, electric blue light, gathered around his outstretched hands, the air inches from his nose blazing with it. He reached out to it, palms pressing against it as he felt himself grow heavy. Time had almost stopped just here: that would explain the weight and pressure of simple sound waves and oxygen. His hands held blue stars, and pushed against endless dark matter, until he heaved that heavy breath of air, and pushed into it. Five has climbed the trees here in the courtyard at least a hundred times, and in that span, fallen out a few times. Mother has explained to him the rush of adrenaline, an electric pulse as your body desperately tries to escape danger or discomfort, something quick and exhilarating. As Five pushed into nothingness, he felt adrenaline, or something like it, drag along his veins and cut him free from that string around his spine, and he was thrown into nothingness.

Realistically, Five knows that this space he inhabits is one of magnetism and atomic compression, and stands within it for a split second, if even that. But now, as he moves through the weight of air, pushing through it desperately like it were molasses, he knows that he has been here for an eternity. White beads of fire burn into his retinas as his lash line is singed with blue, irises expanding to combat the nothingness around him before desperately contracting in the face of a galaxy's worth of light. As Five marvels in the face of this endless pocket of space and time, he feels it: the residual momentum of the pull from the string, inertia not at all concerned with the vastness of epiphany before his eyes right now. So, in the typical pattern of Hargreeves’ luck, just as Five grows comfortable with the infinite pressure on his eyes, lungs and spine, that string’s residual force manages to yank him free of the pocket of frozen energy. He is thrust brutally into the cool air of reality, eyes burning with colors he’d forgotten he’d known. His stomach feels wrung, lungs exhausted, legs and arms exhausted from the journey to the abyss. Finally, as Five is steady on his feet, he manages to look up into the blazing blue eyes of Mother, her marble-esque hand stretched out to him, and he lets her lay it on his shoulders. She wraps her arms around him, slowly lifting up his petite figure, letting their foreheads fall together.

Briefly, Five is reminded of his infinite second within the abyss, for Mother’s eyes are the same color as the stars he held in his hands, but she doesn’t burn his eyes. Instead, she starts something warm and honest in between his ribs. Five does something he doesn’t normally allow: he giggles. 

“Mother!” he whisper-shouts, squeezing his eyes shut, the arms of an indecisive galaxy still emblazoned on his retinas, supernovas still fizzing at his fingertips. “I did it! Did you see what I did? I-I tore open the air!” Grace laughs, red lips curled pleasantly as her own bell-like laugh spills from her lips and rings softly in Five’s ears.

…

Theoretically, it should have been easy to rip open space and freeze time, but in practice, it really,  _ really _ wasn’t. That of course didn’t stop Five, who practiced with Mother every morning on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and would zip around the house, Ben and Vanya chasing after him, squealing until Father grew frustrated. Even as he ended every day exhausted, limbs gelatinous and useless, Five continued. Power was a difficult thing to hold, but honestly, his power was so much cooler than Luther’s, and it didn’t hurt nearly as much as Ben’s seemed to. Five didn’t  _ think _ that he was better, he  _ knew _ he was. He needn’t catch Father’s eye, not when he could stare down the gullet of the Milky Way.


End file.
